machine stitching

The great outdoors | Great Escape | Josefine Van der Hoeven

Josefine van der Hoeven 0 Comments 12/06/2024

Hello Paperlovers,

and welcome to the Cocoa Vanilla Studio blog! I’m so glad you’re here seeking new scrapbook inspiration and are curious about the fantastic new collection called “Great Escape.” Today, I’m excited to share how I was inspired by the June challenge. I love stars, so I dove into fussy cutting and had a blast creating this layout.

First, I began by selecting a sheet of patterned paper filled with stars and cutting out each one. For the background, I opted for a crisp white 12×12 cardstock to make the stars pop. Using my electronic cutting machine, I cut a circular frame, which I placed in the center of the white cardstock. To add a subtle touch of detail, I stitched a delicate white border around the circle.

Next, I adhered my photo partially onto the circular frame, using patterned paper as a backdrop to give it an extra layer of interest. With the photo in place, it was time to arrange all those carefully cut stars. I wanted to create a playful and dynamic effect, so I scattered the stars around the photo and the circular frame, using 3D foam to lift them off the page slightly. This gave the layout depth and a fun, interactive feel. Once the stars were securely in place, it was time to add the title. I chose the elegant black titles from the collection, placing the title right in the center of the circle. The bold, stylish lettering contrasted beautifully with the white background and colorful stars, making the title stand out prominently.

To finish off the layout, I added some splatters of blue distress ink. This little touch brought a sense of whimsy and tied the entire composition together. I let the ink dry naturally, which added a bit of texture and dimension to the page.

By focusing on the star theme and using techniques like fussy cutting and layering with 3D foam, this layout captures the essence of adventure and exploration that “Great Escape” embodies. Whether you’re documenting outdoor memories or simply love celestial designs, this collection offers endless possibilities for creative expression. Don’t forget to join in on the challenges and share your creations with the Cocoa Vanilla Studio community—we love seeing what you come up with! Until then, enjoy scrapping and making memories.

XoXo, Jo

Choose Happy | Happiness collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 23/05/2024

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you today to share a new scrapbook layout featuring the gorgeous Happiness collection! I was given the Throwback Thursday theme for this week so I decided to revisit the gorgeous Happiness collection and got creating! I don’t know about you but the Happiness collection would have to be one of my all-time favourite collections by Cocoa Vanilla, I am in love with it!

I chose to document a photo of my honey and I on a date a couple of months ago, opting to print the photo in black and white so that it would stand out amongst all the colour in the Happiness collection. I began by choosing a title cut file from CUT to YOU, cutting it out on white cardstock, I then took one of the papers from the A5 paper stack and backed the open letters in the cut file. I added craft foam to the underside of the larger letters and adhered it down in the centre of another sheet of plain white cardstock. I did leave adhesive off the top part of the cut file so that I could tuck in my photo and some embellishments and the cut file would be able to overlap these. I trimmed this white cardstock down to measure roughly 11′ x 11′ and adhered it to the ‘B’ side of the Botanical Bliss paper, I machine-stitched a border around the outside to add some texture and some interest.

I layered another of the papers from the A5 paper stack underneath the photo and also one of the frames from the ephemera pack. I also tucked one of the journal spots from the Accessory sticker sheet into the top of the frame and photo. Next, I cut out the ‘You Are My Happy’ from the A5 paper pad and adhered it to the right-hand side of the photo. I also tucked in the tag from the Accessory sticker sheet into the top of the You Are My Happy piece. I took some more ephemera pieces like the florals and butterflies and layered them around the cut file, I also layered the phrase banner die-cuts on top of the cut file.

The clear stickers in this collection are gorgeous so I added them around my page and also some of the phrase stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet as well. As I don’t journal on my pages all that much, I love how these phrase stickers help to tell the story behind my photo.

I cut a strip of the ‘B’ side of the ‘Frame of Mind’ paper and punched out a scalloped border using my border punch. I then adhered this piece below the cut file and machine-stitched through the centre to add some extra texture. Lastly I stamped the date stamp to finish my layout. A love how it turned out and hope you are inspired to get creative!

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Wild & Free | Great Escape | Rachel Lowe

Rachel Lowe 22/05/2024

Today I am sharing another layout using the fab! Great Escape collection! This layout has been created using only the A5 Paper Pad.

The only thing you have to remember is that anything you cut must be 6×8 inches. This is a great way to either save your 12×12 inch papers or when your supply of the 12×12 inches papers is running low. I cut 10 scallop strips using different colours and patterns to create my background. So they stood out I added some black machine stitching to each strip.

I next cut my title Wild & Free using a cut file from the Silhouette design store which I then offset using a darker colour to add contrast so my title really popped on the white background paper.

Using another cut file from the Silhouette Design store, polaroid Frames, which I back filled with the journal cards also from the A5 paper pad. I added my two photos and set about embellishing this with Puffy Stickers, Accessory stickers and ephemera die cuts.

I used chipboard pieces to add over my scallop paper strips to add dimension. I layered the stars and used foam tape to add dimension.

This layout was super easy to put together and you could do a 8 1/2 x 11 inch version. You could also add larger photos or more photos. I love the colours of this collection and the A5 paper pad has some colours/designs that are not in the 12×12 collection pack.

As always thank you for stopping by and I hope I have inspired you to get out your A5 paper pad and think of ways you can use it to create a layout.

Rachel X

Road Trip | Great Escape collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 09/05/2024

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new layout created using the awesome Great Escape collection! I can not get enough of this collection! I think this is my 6th layout using this awesome collection and I still have heaps of ideas flowing! Talk about value for money! I pulled out a super cute photo of my youngest son from when he was about 3 going for a ride in the car, I just love the thumbs up gesture- so cute!

I chose to work with a darker background paper choosing the ‘Journey’ patterned paper for this layout. I knew I was going to be adding the white cut file title and I really wanted that to pop off the page. The cut file I chose is from CUT to YOU, I cut out the title in white and cut out the road in black and backed it with some white cardstock to make it resemble a road as close as possible! For the large open letters in the cut file I took the A5 paper stack and choose various papers to add in the open holes. Once the cut file was all backed, I adhered the road down first using regular adhesive and then for the title, I added craft foam and then adhered it down in the centre of the page, I love adding craft foam so that it creates some dimension on my layout, this also allows me to tuck in bits and pieces where I want to if I feel some places need extra detail.

I added my photo on the right side, tucking it in behind the ‘D’ in Road I would normally layer a paper or a die-cut underneath my photo but this time I left it free of these. Once I was happy with the photo placement and the title it was time for my favourite part and that is embellishing! Below the photo I added a chipboard piece and I also added the flag chipboard piece overlapping the road and coming out of the ‘A’ in Road. The So Much Fun chipboard piece I added on top of the cut file and also added some of the phrase stickers from the Accessory sticker sheet to help tell my story.

I took a few die-cuts from the ephemera pack and also added these around my page too, I love finding the perfect piece that is the perfect shape or perfect colour to fit in spots! One of the many things I love to do when I create! I like to balance my pages and describe my style is very clean but colourful too!

Some of the smaller embellishments like the puffy shapes were some of the last things I added to my page, along with stamping the date stamp which is one of my go to things on every page! Do you have something you like to include on every project? Kind of like a signature? Lastly I trimmed down the ‘Journey’ patterned paper to roughly 11′ x 11′ and matted the entire layout on white cardstock. I then machine-stitched a border using black thread around the entire edge of the layout.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you are inspired to use your Great Escape collection and create some adventure layouts!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Happy Days | Throwback Thursday | Michelle Stokes

Michelle Stokes 25/04/2024

Hey Scrappy Friends, It’s Michelle back with you today to share a little Throwback Thursday creation. If you’re not familiar with this theme its where we dip into the archives of our Cocoa Vanilla Studio stash and create something magical with an older collection. Today I chose the Happy Days Collection to brighten up our scrolling time, plus a little walk down memory lane in the photo choice too.

I chose a sweet photo of Leila and I from many many moons ago. We were sharing a sweet moment in my craft room when she requested a selfie.

The layout itself started off quite different to this as I originally didn’t plan on using any white cardstock. I knew I wanted to create a wreath type layout as I haven’t made one in quite some time and they always look so beautiful. As I was moving the floral ephemera pieces around on the beautiful spotted aqua paper (Little Blossom B Side) I thought why not try a heart shape. I drew a rough shape between all the flower clusters, making mental notes for where I wanted them all placed, and then sewed all around the shape multiple times for a little hint of stitched texture.

Next up I worked on sticking all the florals down into the clusters using a mix of pieces from both the Floral and Ephemera packs within the collection. I even added some fussy cut florals and butterflies from the Lush Blooms and Flutterby papers. I mainly used foam double sided tape and tacky glue to piece the clusters together in a layered group

I added the photo in between the clusters using a frame from the Ephemera pack and backed with foam to pop it up off heart.

I used the words Happy Days from the Ephemera pack as my title, with the addition of a word sticker from the Accessory Stickers sheet. The perfect addition of colour to mix with all the bright flowers within this layout

Next I decided that the heart wasn’t standing out as much as I had hoped so I chopped into the background paper. I cut close to the machine stitching, under all the florals that were already adhered to the paper and thankfully was able to keep everything in tact. Once I had this main piece free I adhered it to some white cardstock in the centre of the page, then added all the smaller fussy cut florals around the larger clusters, added some puffy stickers then sprinkled with gold ink and some gold glitter paint in spots.

Here’s a final look at the entire layout, so bright and Happy…

Well friends, thats all from me today. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Until next time, Happy Scrapping!
Michelle x

Wild New Life Adventure | Great Escape | Michelle Stokes

Michelle Stokes 18/04/2024

Hello Crafty friends, it’s Michelle here today with a new layout share for you all. Shock horror as its not a layout dedicated to our furry kids this week, I chose a recent photo of Leila on her first day of High School. New level of life adventures has begun. Woo Hoo!

Using the A5 paper stack from the Great Escape Collection I’ve whipped up a grid design for the base of my layout design. I cut the squares in the middle row in a 3 inch size and the top and bottom rows in a 2.5inch size, then sewed around the entire edges of each using my machine. Each piece was then secured to the cardstock base using foam for a little dimension.

The photo (shared with permission from this spicy child of mine cause we all know how teens are these days) was printed in a 4x3inch size and packed using another pattern from within the A5 paper stack. I stapled both pieces together using tiny staples and adhered to the layout using a little more foam sheeting to pop it off the layout.

You can see above how the little bit of dimension brings the layout to life

I created a couple of larger clusters diagonally in the top and bottom corners using left over stars fussy cut from the Star Gazing paper that I used on my last layout, with a mix of enamel shapes, accessory word stickers and puffy stars from the foam titles pack

Next up I added the mixed product title using a word from the ephemera pack, letters from the chipboard stickers pack and words from the Foam Title stickers pack. If you’re wondering where the W came from – never fear, its just the M from the word TIMES in the pack that I’ve turned upside down.

I added a little journal spot from the Accessory Stickers sheet to the bottom of this square to note what the photo is all about, and theres also a date label tucked into the photo too that was added towards the end.

I added the usual sprinkle of gold ink from the bottle I have that seems to be a never ending supply, just like Mary Poppins bag, but I’m sure its going to dry up at any minute

Here’s a final look at the layout as a whole…

Well friends, thats all that I have for you today.
Thank you so very much for stopping by and seeing this beloved creation that I’ve made.

Until next time, Happy Scrappin!
Michelle x

You Are Awesome | Boys Rule collection | Tarrah McLean

Tarrah McLean 09/04/2024

Hi creative friends!

It’s Tarrah back with you and today I am sharing a new layout inspired by the new April challenge to include a big rainbow as the main element on your layout. I decided to go with a non-traditional rainbow and created my own using various papers from the Boys Rule collection.

The new monthly challenge for April is to include a BIG rainbow as the main design element on your layout.

To help create the arches of the rainbow, I used various sized dinner plates and traced around the tops of them on the different patterned papers I chose from the Boys Rule collection. I chose these following papers from the Boys Rule collection: ‘Fun and Games’, ‘Straight and Narrow’, ‘Entitled’, ‘Expressionist’ and ‘Star Fall’. I then arranged them on a plain white cardstock background and adhered them down. I trimmed the white cardstock down to measure roughly 11′ x 11′ and adhered it to the ‘Boys Stuff’ patterned paper. I then machine-stitched each individual colour in the rainbow with matching thread.

At the base of the rainbow, I adhered a strip of the ‘Straight and Narrow’ paper horizontally to add another layer to my layout. I added craft foam underneath my photo and placed it over on the right side of my page, I layered the frame and journal spot from the ephemera pack tucked in on the left hand side of the photo, on top of the photo I added one of the banner stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet. My title is from the chipboard pack, I love these words! I added the ‘You’ and ‘Are’ words at the top of the rainbow and the ‘Awesome’ word under the photo. Either side of the ‘Awesome’ word, I added the scalloped border sticker from the Clear Sticker sheet. Above the photo, I added one of the banner stickers from the Accessory Sticker sheet. I punched out some stars from the ‘Happy Go Lucky’ paper and then layered some of the star stickers over the top. I placed a few of these around my page.

Once I was happy with how the larger elements were placed on my layout, I started adding some smaller embellishments including more clear stickers, more accessory stickers and some more ephemera also. One of my signature features on my layouts is to stamp the date of when the photo was taken and this layout is no exception, I stamped the date stamp using some black ink.

I don’t often journal on my pages so I love the phrase and word stickers from the accessory sticker sheet. I add them to all of my Cocoa Vanilla layouts, where I can, to help tell the story. Boy layouts are one of my favourite projects to create and this one was so much fun to create! I really love how it turned out too. Make sure you create a layout and add a big rainbow element as your main design feature and share it with us by uploading it to the Cocoa Vanilla Studio Community Facebook page.

Thank you so much for stopping by the Cocoa Vanilla blog today! I hope you enjoyed reading about how I created my layout as much as I enjoyed creating it!

Happy creating!

Tarrah x

Adventure Awaits | Great Escape Collection | Michelle Stokes

Michelle Stokes 11/03/2024

Hey Scrappy friends, it’s Michelle here today. I’ve got a brand new layout share for you all using the Great Escape Collection thats inspired by this months Challenge – Scrap about your adventures. I’ve taken a step back in time to when I travelled overseas with my Mum in 2008 and had a magical visit to Times Square in New York. Loved this trip of a lifetime.

As the photo was already quite busy I didn’t want to add too much to the background of the layout or overdo the embellishments, so I’ve kept the background ‘clean’ and only used fussy cut stars from the Star Gazing paper for the main focal points of the embellishment clusters.

I took this photo from the top of a ‘hop on, hop off’ bus as we were touring around the city. This was the first glimpse of the area and it was just so impressive. The noise, the people, the cars. Everything there in that moment was everything you read and see online about New York. Its was magical and hectic all in one.

I backed the photo using the rainbow stripe side of the Journey Paper and layered it with some foam sheet to pop it off the page. I knew I would be using the chipboard pieces at some point so I needed to match the depth of dimension they would create. I added fussy cut stars from the Star Gazing paper to the top right with the addition of the cute mini van ephemera piece

I added more of the Journey Paper to the layout, this time the green tree pattern along the bottom of the layout to act as a landing point for one of the clusters. I added machine stitching along the top edge once all the stars and stickers were in place

To the left of the photo I created a cluster of stars using different forms of adhesive for a layered effect. I did this with all three clusters within the visual triangle. I also added an extra piece of chipboard to the photo along with a sticker and journal tab tucked into the top

To create the title I’ve used the word Adventure from the Chipboard Stickers pack along with my beloved white alphas and some handwritten text for journalling. I love the mixed look this creates. Then lastly I added my usual splatter of gold ink to add interest to all the whitespace surrounding the clusters.

Here’s a final look at the entire layout..

Well thats all from me today, thanks so much for stopping by. Be sure to check out the main post regarding this months Challenge to see more inspiration on the current task.

Until Next time, Happy Scrapping!
Michelle x

Wild, Fun & Free | Great Escape | Michelle Stokes

Michelle Stokes 25/02/2024

Hello Hello, it’s Michelle here with you today to share another creation using our NEW collection – Great Escape. I’ve tied this into our current Monthly Scrap–lifting Challenge to give you another example of where your imagination can take you when lifting others creations.

Wild, Fun & Happy – all words easily used to describe this crazy doggo of ours. He keeps us entertained day in and day out, loves on us like no tomorrow, and drives his fur sister Daisy absolutely crazy.

I took inspiration from the absolutely amazing layout below, created by Josephine. For my creation I’ve used used a mix of hand cut and ephemera stars to create a similar look to the hearts in the original.

I hand cut all the larger stars from the pattern papers within the A5Paper stack. I used the larger of the stars within the Ephemera pack to trace around, then drew secondary lines around that to create a larger star. I then grouped 2 complimenting patterns together and sewed them together with some rough machine stitching and adhered to the white background using foam tape for dimension.

I added in ephemera stars, fussy cut stars from the A5 version of the Star Gazing paper and puffy stars from both the foam title pack and puffy stickers pack.

I printed the photos in 2.5×3.5inch size and layered them together using foam behind to pop them up over the tops of the spiky star points. There is so much going on within this layout in terms of dimension, but I love it. It really brings the layout to life.

I also added pops of ephemera pieces and accessory stickers into the star clusters to add even more excitement to the layout.

Lastly the title came together using words from the Foam Title Stickers pack and my trusty old tiny alphas from the Hello Lovely Collection from many many moons ago.. Wonder if anyone can twist Zoe’s arm to get these released again? I’m sure I’m not the only one who loves a little old school alpha action on a layout?

A few splatters of gold ink and I have one complete scrap-lifted layout ready to add to the collection of Pet scrappy layouts.

Here’s a final look at the layout, inspired by Josephine’s

Well friends, thanks so much for stopping by today. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing my take on this Months Scrap Lift Challenge. Be sure to check out the original post HERE for all the info about it.

Until Next time, Happy Scrappin!
Michelle x

WILD THING ! | GREAT ESCAPE | SOPHIE DELORME

Sophie Delorme 20/02/2024

Hello friends!

It’s Sophie with you today and I am excited to share my very first layout with the new Great Escape collection!

As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly which photo to document with it!!

I started with a white background and the Starry Night paper to place my photo and embellishments.

I mounted the photo on tissue paper, adhesive foam and a few layers of patterned papers from the A5 Paper Stack.

I placed the photo on the right side of the page, and added white gesso on the left side where I was about to build a little scenery.

I selected a few embellishments from the Die Cut Ephemera pack like the trees, signage and tent to support the theme of the layout, and scattered numerous stars around the photo and title (Foam Title Stickers).